prévoyancevsprévoyantTell them apart

Quick tell: prévoyance is a noun, prévoyant is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“prévoyance” is a noun and “prévoyant” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,731
“prévoyance” frequency rank
#15,470
“prévoyant” frequency rank
31201
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prévoyance prévoyant
Definition Faculté de prévoir. Qui juge par avance qu'une chose devrait arriver.

Where the eye mixes prévoyance and prévoyant

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. prévoyance runs 10 letters (CCVCVVVCCV) against prévoyant's 9 (CCVCVVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

10 ch
prévoyance
9 ch
prévoyant

Visual trap between prévoyance and prévoyant

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: prévoyance is \pʁe.vwa.jɑ̃s\ while prévoyant is \pʁe.vwa.jɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31201, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prévoyance is recorded at frequency rank #15,731, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁe.vwa.jɑ̃s\. prévoyant is at rank #15,470, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁe.vwa.jɑ̃\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 31201, this pair ranks #305,321 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of prévoyance vs prévoyant

Shared letters: anoprvyé. Private to "prévoyance": ce. Private to "prévoyant": t.

"prévoyance" · 10 letters · shape CCVCVVVCCV  ·  "prévoyant" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVVVCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "prévoyance" for "prévoyant" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prévoyance" is a noun and "prévoyant" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "prévoyance" or "prévoyant"?
"prévoyant" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,470 in our French list, against #15,731 for "prévoyance". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "prévoyance" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prévoyant" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #305,321 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prévoyance" and "prévoyant" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prévoyant vs prévoyons". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #305,321 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list